Curaçao vs Anjouan — Which Offshore Gambling Licence in 2026?

The honest comparison

Both are offshore, both are cheap relative to Malta, and both are popular with crypto-payment casinos. The difference is what happens after you’re licensed.

Curaçao rebuilt itself with the LOK, adopted in 2023 and in force since 24 December 2024. It’s now a direct Curaçao Gaming Authority licence — issued under separate B2C and B2B categories — with real substance requirements, a compliance function, and ongoing supervision. That lifted its standing — and its cost.

Anjouan is the budget play. The Anjouan Offshore Financial Authority issues licences at a published EUR 17,828, and the same again each year to renew. Like Curaçao, it splits B2C and B2B into separate categories, so a group that both operates and supplies pays twice in either jurisdiction. No processing time is published; advisers report a month or two, which is where the speed reputation comes from. The trade-off is a lower reputational ceiling and patchier payment acceptance.

When Curaçao wins

Pick Curaçao if you need broader payment-processor and banking acceptance, want a licence that survives more due-diligence questions, or plan to scale. The post-LOK CGA supervision is the point — it’s what makes the licence worth more than its fee.

When Anjouan wins

Pick Anjouan if budget is the binding constraint, you’re testing a market, or your payments are crypto-first and your processor accepts it. Just go in knowing the ceiling is lower and plan an exit to a higher tier if the brand grows.

What changed in our reading of Anjouan, September 2026

We audited the Anjouan side of this comparison against the regulator’s own pages and corrected four things that affect the choice here.

Renewal is EUR 17,828, the same as issuance, not the roughly EUR 15,000 that circulates. That narrows the recurring gap against Curaçao, though it does not close it.

B2C and B2B are separate categories in Anjouan too. The old framing of this comparison, that Curaçao splits the categories and Anjouan does not, was wrong in Anjouan’s favour. Both split, both charge per category.

Anjouan publishes no restricted-country list. It states that licences carry no territorial restrictions under its law and that geo-blocking and local compliance rest solely with the operator. That is more burden than a list, not less, and it is a real difference from a regime that tells you where you stand.

And Anjouan publishes no processing time at all. The one to two months everyone quotes, including this article, is adviser observation. The Authority says only that timing depends on the completeness of the documentation and the complexity of the due diligence, so the speed advantage is real in practice and unguaranteed on paper.

Full workings in our Anjouan cost breakdown, category guide and market-access analysis.

The decision rule

Confirm your banking and PSP stack before you pick. That single step decides more outcomes than the fee comparison. Then match the jurisdiction to where your players are and how much reputational signal your model actually needs.